Tuesday 3rd October 2023: John Sisk & Son (Sisk) has announced that it has gained business recognition for its adoption of ISO20400 - the international standard for sustainable procurement - and has exceeded the baseline score by over 25%.
As the ISO 20400 standard states: “Every organisation has environmental, social and economic impacts. Sustainable procurement represents an opportunity to provide more value to the organization by improving productivity, assessing value and performance, enabling communication between purchasers, suppliers and all stakeholders, and by encouraging innovation.”
Leadership at Sisk identified the implementation of ISO20400 as an important element to support its sustainability goals and the company’s vision ‘to be the best at creating value for customers, shareholder and people’. Integrating ISO20400 accelerates the company’s Sustainability Roadmap 2030, as the business focuses on continually strengthening its sustainability ethos and the actions, with the aim of building a more sustainable and resilient business. For Sisk, it’s particularly relevant to anyone internally who contributes to procurement decisions and/or works with suppliers, including sub-contractors.
In October 2021, a desktop review of existing policies and ways of working was conducted by specialist firm Future Planet and they guided the SP working group to finalise an assessment to understand the baseline of current sustainable procurement practices. Their baseline score was 60%. Utilising Future Planet’s platform, the SP working group went to work: ISO20400 readiness gaps to good were identified, actions agreed and allocated, monitored and delivered by a cross-functional team. The platform guided the team and informed and tracked the progress of their implementation of sustainable procurement practices.
Earlier this year, after significant engagement and review of their new or revised sustainable procurement practices, it was announced that the ISO20400 working group has reached a score of 86% - a significant improvement on the baseline of 60%.
Craig Murphy, Supply Chain Director at Sisk, says “We’re delighted to have scored so highly in achieving ISO20400. Sustainable procurement is about looking beyond short-term needs and considering the longer-term social and environmental impacts of each purchase. Our procurement and commercial teams help the business to prioritise sustainable criteria as we help drive markets for more innovative and sustainable solutions. The collaboration across the business owners is critical and we are committed to drive progress to deliver extra procurement value to all our stakeholders. It won’t stop there either as we strive to improve our sustainable procurement further across the business.”
Ingrid De Doncker, Head of Research & Innovation at Future Planet, commented “We were delighted to help Sisk adopt world-class sustainable procurement practices, as guided by the standard. The team knew that ISO20400 was a valuable foundation, but they build on that to propel their sustainable policies, processes, actions, targets, and metrics forward. They build a bank of knowledge and evidence which is crucial for the upcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). This directive encourages organizations to integrate sustainability practices into their supply chain management processes, promoting responsible sourcing and production. We are proud that the Future Planet platform helped them to collaborate across all stakeholder groups. In the end, success is down to the vision, commitment, and efforts that has resulted in John Sisk & Son current sustainable leadership position and enhanced ability to better serve their customers.”
